CLASS ACT (A BRITISH ROCKSTAR BAD BOY ROMANCE) (9 page)

BOOK: CLASS ACT (A BRITISH ROCKSTAR BAD BOY ROMANCE)
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“Will you be able to make time for me, Heath?” I asked. I prayed he didn’t notice my unprofessional blushing. “I have some new exercises for you to go over. I know we’re on a tour but we have to establish a steady schedule.”

 

 

He sighed which sent a gust of hot breath upon my face. “What’s on the agenda?”

 

 

“Mostly reading and a little bit of earth science,” I replied. “I think the reading will be the key to everything. If we can work with your dyslexia and improve your reading skills, everything else will go a lot easier.”

 

 

“When do you want to do this?”

 

 

“Can you make time after the concert?” I requested. “Jared told me you’ll be busy with the media and other commitments but we really need to sit down together.”

 

 

Heath leaned forward. His lips were so very close to mine. “You’re asking me to turn away the harem of women who will be begging to enter my bed after this concert.”

 

 

I stepped back. “No, I’m asking you to be a dedicated student.”

 

 

He knew what effect he had on me and didn’t bother to hide it. With a boyish grin, Heath said. “We’ll have some time between now and the show. Just knock on my dressing room. No promises though. That’s the nature of the beast.”

 

 

I averted my eyes from both his gaze and his bare chest. “I’m glad you’re taking this seriously-”

 

 

“I’m out of a fucking job if I don’t pass some damn test,” he muttered, rubbing his forehead. “Of course I’m going to take it seriously.”

 

 

“Good,” I replied simply. “As I said before, working with your dyslexia could help you better approach other subjects.”

 

 

He raised an eyebrow. “Like curing it?”

 

 

I shook my head. “You can’t really cure dyslexia. You just learn how to better live with it.”

 

 

“I figured as much,” he sighed. “I can handle sheet music. Hell, I can even compose if I put my mind to it. It’s just the words that trip me up.”

 

 

“I’ll admit I’m not a subject on the matter,” I said. In the past, I had tutored a number of students with learning disabilities and other ailments. However, Heath was the first student I had met who had this particular condition. “Nonetheless, one of the ways to deal with it is through practice.”

 

 

He groaned. “Don’t they have some oral medicine I can take?”

 

 

“Maybe talking about your experience growing up with a reading disability could help,” I offered. “It’ll help me understand my student better and how to help him prepare for his exams.”

 

 

Heath looked evasive. “You want to know my experience growing up? Imagine your father stomping on your face with a steel-toed boot until you were twelve.”

 

 

I cringed. “More like what it was going to school and your struggles with learning.”

 

 

The rock star shrugged. “If you think it’ll help…”

 

 

I smiled at him. “I know it will, Heath.”

 

 

“Word of warning,” he teased. That naughty grin of him could charm any woman into coming to bed with him. I was no exception. “I’m a bad boy now and I was a bad boy then.”

 

 

“You seem pretty well-behaved student given your reputation,” I said before adding a clarification. “Relatively speaking.”

 

 

“Like I said, my career is on the line,” he replied, brushing off the praise. The rock star turned and headed to the stage. “Don’t think I’m doing this for you.”

 

 

I watched as he left to join his bandmates. For our relationship to work, we had to keep things professional. I couldn’t teach if my every other waking thought was about my hands roaming his across his rock hard abs.

 

 

I whispered to myself. “Keep it professional, Charlotte.”

 

 

I wanted to believe those words.

 

“I take it band practice went well.”

 

 

I looked up from my worksheet at the straight-laced teacher. “Much better than the one I just finished.”

 

 

She took the paper and commented. “That’s better, Heath. You’re making fewer mistakes.”

 

 

I leaned back and put my hands behind my head. “I always knew I was a genius. I just needed to roll up my sleeves-”

 

 

“I didn’t say it was great,” she said my chagrin. The woman had an uncanny ability to deflate me. “Just take these lessons one at a time. Before long, you’ll notice the progress you’ve made.”

 

 

The only thing I wanted to take was some groupie on the dresser of my dressing room. Hell. I was even in the mood to fuck Charlotte. Something about her chaste, professional look drew me like a moth to the flame.

 

 

It had been years since I had to work towards a sexual encounter. These days, women just opened their legs up for me on command. I could use the challenge.

 

 

I imagined a woman like Charlotte preferred romance to the direct approach. With a few candlelit dinners, she would be dying to join me in bed. I already could see the look of desire in her eyes.

 

 

“Heath, pay attention to me!”

 

 

I snapped awake to see a sour expression on Charlotte’s face. “What were you saying again?”

 

 

She groaned. “I asked about your teachers back when you were young, Heath.”

 

 

“What about them?”

 

 

“Did any of your teachers notice your difficulties in class?” she asked. “Did they try to give you extra attention or after school help?”

 

 

“I went to some underfunded elementary school in the bad side of the city,” I scoffed. “The teachers cared more about their smoke breaks than they did about any of us.”

 

 

“Did you get any support for your hobbies and extracurricular hobbies?” she continued. “How about your interest in music?”

 

 

“The only thing they supported was a split lip when I mouthed back too much,” I said to Charlotte’s horror. “I always knew music was in my blood. I just didn’t need my teacher spilling it to see for myself.”

 

 

The woman seemed uncomfortable with the topic. “You must have shown talent at an early age.”

 

 

“Talent?” I chuckled. “No, I was pure shit until I met Howard. Still, I knew I wanted to be a musician since I was a lad. Just strumming an out of tune guitar in bed made me feel… it made me feel like a normal boy…”

 

 

“How about your parents?” she inquired. “Did they support your interest in music?”

 

 

“They were even worse,” I said grimly. I recalled the nights when my father would beat me and my mother would watch on with indifference. “The only reason they got married was because they conceived me after a drunken one-night stand. If they didn’t get a tax break for raising me, I’d probably end up dumped off in an alley.”

 

 

“I’ve done some research… on your parents,” she said after a pause. Not too many people knew about my fucked up parents. I preferred to keep it that way since the media would have a field day. Jared or the other band members must have filled her on me. “Your father had a criminal record. Your mother had some misdemeanors.”

 

 

I gave a cynical laugh. “Parents of the year, right? He was a loan shark for some small gang and she was a street hustler. Dad would’ve spent most of his life in prison if the jailhouse wasn’t so booked. He got off early more due to budgetary issues than anything else.”

 

 

“What happened to them?”

 

 

“Dad got killed in a drunken brawl after the local football team lost,” I continued. It couldn’t have happened to a nicer man. “Mum always lived in the bottom of a bottle. It wasn’t long after her liver gave out.”

 

 

“Do you ever miss them?”

 

 

“He beat me every other night while mum watched with some cheap ale in her hand,” I stated plainly. Charlotte’s expression turned to that of horror. “When he wasn’t busy thrashing me, the man told me I was a piece of shit who wouldn’t amount to anything. Funny thing is, I believed him for so many years.”

 

 

“I’m so sorry, Heath,” she whispered. “I didn’t-”

 

 

I spat back. “I don’t need your fucking pity.”

 

 

“It’s empathy, not pity,” she replied, her eyes glimmering. Charlotte reached across to grasp me hand. It calmed me even if my rage just boiled under the surface. “I shouldn’t have probed that hard. Please, forgive me.”

 

 

“Well, the door is open,” I grumbled. I didn’t know how we got from the subject of dyslexia to my fucked up childhood but we managed to do it. “Why not walk through it? What else do you want to know?”

 

 

“After your parents died, you were sent to an orphanage,” she continued. “What was it like? Did the people in charge support you?”

 

 

“Some of the best years of my life,” I reminisced with a small smile. “We were all poor as fleas but it didn’t matter. I felt like I was part of a real family for the first time in my life up to that point. I had chores to do but I did them with a smile. The matron in charge would chew me out if I misbehaved too badly. The other orphans were like my brothers and sisters. It was something out of fucking Harry Potter!”

 

 

“Did anyone notice your problems with reading?”

 

 

I nodded. “Ms. Fincher, that was our matron, sat me down every night and helped me read at a passable level. I never had the stomach for learning but I tried for her sake. Howard did his best to help me as well.”

 

 

“What did he do?”

 

 

“He showed me to make music,” I answered, my voice growing soft. “My brain couldn’t handle words but I was born to read musical notes. Howard helped me go over the patterns and symbols. He taught me what they meant. Funny thing is that reading lyrics on sheet music was never much of a problem with me.”

 

 

Charlotte brought a hand to her chin. “Interesting… did Howard have a musical background?”

 

 

I nodded. “His parents were as sweet as mine were savage. They were a good, honest couple that ran a music shop under the house they owned. That is until a damn fire broke out in their home and left Howard orphaned.”

 

 

That whole family was mired with tragedy. Two good parents were taken before their time. Their son soon followed just when his music career was about to take off.

 

 

How did a fucking guy like me live on when Howard got scattered his ashes scattered over the Irish Sea?

 

 

“Do you think it will help if we did some writing exercises on sheet music?” Charlotte asked, breaking me out of my morbid thoughts. “It’s unusual but I try to approach my students’ challenges on an issue by issue basis.”

BOOK: CLASS ACT (A BRITISH ROCKSTAR BAD BOY ROMANCE)
6.38Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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